petMD Blogs

The Daily Vet is a blog featuring veterinarians from all walks of life. Every week they will tackle entertaining, interesting, and sometimes difficult topics in the world of animal medicine – all in the hopes that their unique insights and personal experiences will help you to understand your pets.

Here’s a secret: Most veterinarians detest online reviews. They know that plenty of people now use them to find their new pet’s healthcare provider — so they can’t ignore them — but they also know how stressful reading the reviews can be.

Everyone knows a disgruntled client is a hundred times more likely to leave a negative review than a perennially happy camper. It only takes a couple of angry customers to pollute your reviews. And who hasn’t had a couple of angry people? (Some people are just naturally angry, anyway.)

In my case, the only negative online review I ever received (that I ever came across, anyway) wasn’t even a client’s. It was a prospective client who arrived 45 minutes late for her appointment without even calling to say she was running behind. My great sin was in actually stopping to introduce myself and explain that I wouldn’t be able to see her since she was late … so that I was now late to go pick up my son. She wrote that I condescended to her. Which I’m sure I did. Rude people with entitled attitudes piss me off.

Though I hated knowing that someone so annoying would write a negative review, it’s not really a big deal. I mean, now, anyone looking for a new veterinarian will know how much I hate latecomers. That’s not such a bad thing to put out there, is it?

But not all veterinarians have it so easy. Not at all.

To be sure, some veterinarians get what they deserve. Their crappy care might well leave victims looking for some way to ensure it doesn’t happen again. But others don’t deserve any of it; much less the angry rants that sometimes accompany these "reviews." Here’s why:

1. In veterinary medicine, writing fraudulent, flamingly negative reviews has become a problem behavior for disgruntled ex-employees. I’m sure it happens in plenty of fields (restaurants come to mind), but tech-phobic veterinarians tend to take these things hard.

2. The bigger hospitals get it worse (especially ER and specialty facilities). And it’s almost always to do with money. Because big hospitals a) have strict policies on payment; b) don’t have the luxury of getting to know their clients; and c) tend to deal in the toughest, most expensive cases. The financial obstacles can make people really really mad.

So it is that veterinarians hate these review sites. But, as restaurateurs have done, it’s my contention that veterinarians need to embrace them — not despise them or (worse) ignore them altogether.

How about you? Do you read reviews? Do you ever write one? Help shift the balance and get your veterinarian to enjoy reading his or her online reviews by writing one or two right now. Here’s a list of the Top 25 Veterinarian Review Sites. (Thanks to VetTech.org.)

Angie’s List: Use this linked page to find a city near you and to read about all the vets listed in or near that city. Angie’s List has reliable reviews on veterinarians across the U.S.

Best Veterinarian Review: This website is devoted to veterinarian reviews. They think veterinarian reviews from actual clients (and their pets) are the best way to see what a vet office is really like before visiting.

Better Business Bureau Accredited Business Directory — Veterinarians: This Accredited Business Directory is a listing of BBB Accredited veterinarians in Wisconsin, who have all agreed to a set of high standards in their business practices. If you live in another state, simply search for "BBB Business Review Veterinarians" and the name of your state.

California Veterinary Medical Board: The mission of the Veterinary Medical Board (VMB) is to protect consumers and animals through development and maintenance of professional standards, licensing of veterinarians, registered veterinary technicians, and premises, and diligent enforcement of the California Veterinary Medicine Practice Act.

Dexknows Veterinarians: Find vets by state and by metro areas in this vast search engine and rating machine. Dexknows is run by a NYSE company that offers marketing solutions to companies and local businesses.

Find a Veterinarian: Whether you have a cat, dog, bird, reptile, horse or other type of pet, this site contains a comprehensive directory of qualified veterinarian clinics throughout the U.S.

Insider Pages Veterinarians: This link leads to the Key West, Florida, page, where you can find vets in that region and their reviews. Use the search engine at the top of the page to change the location to your area.

PETCO.com Ratings and Reviews: PETCO offers a format where readers can make reviews about everything from vets to food to bedding. The cat and dog reviews receive the most attention, with over 29,000 reviews for dogs and over 12,000 reviews for cats.

Precious Pet Vets: This site covers it all, with ratings and reviews of everything from pet arts and crafts to day care, and from service dogs to — you guessed it — veterinarians. You also can search by location.

Rate and Review Your Bird’s Veterinarian: This About.com site asks if you are satisfied with your bird’s veterinarian. Whether you love your avian vet or not, you can voice your opinion by using the form to share your experience with other bird owners.

Rate it all Veterinarian: Rate It All is the fun and social way to find and share reviews about anything. Find a vet by zip code, rate vets and read reviews from around the country. You can share your findings on Facebook or Twitter.

Search for a Veterinarian: Use the search box to find a vet by city and zip code. Add a review or read the reviews already posted.

USA Veterinarians: Business listings are reviewed by professional editors, and many of the businesses listed include opening times, payment methods, maps and directions, website links, photos, reviews and coupons. Their editorial team makes great efforts to evaluate the existence and accuracy of each company profile and reviews.

Viewpoints Veterinarian Reviews: Some of these reviews have nothing to do with vets, but they do have a lot to do with veterinarians and their careers. If you’re seeking a specific veterinarian, you’ll need to do a page search for your state or specific location.

Vet Ratingz: Learn more about your vet through the forum, and check out the top rated vets across the country. This site was created to help consumers find the best veterinarians by sharing information and ratings, and to give people a "scorecard" on how they are doing.

Vet Reviews Online: Vet Reviews Online is here to help you choose the ideal vet for you and your pet. They try to make the site personal and truly care about what you, as a pet owner, want in a vet. You must register before you can use the site or read the reviews. This site also has a Facebook page.

Veterinarian Pages: Veterinarian Pages is a resource that allows you to find information about veterinarians in your area. Consumers can locate veterinary based practices, search directories, research services, obtain maps and directions, and much more.

Veterinarian Review: Review your pet’s doctor and learn from other pet owners about their vets.

Veterinarian Reviews Now: You can learn about vets in your neck of the woods here, an online resource for finding great veterinarian reviews from people with pets who have gone to visit them.

Veterinarians: Veterinarians.com enables you to find Veterinarians in your area. Start your search by entering a zip code, then read or write reviews about local vets.

Yelp! Veterinarians: This link leads to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, vets, but all you need to do is find the same topic in your city or region to learn about local vets and see their ratings.

ZipperPages Veterinarians: Drill down through this database to find vets by state and then by city. Many have not yet been rated or reviewed. This site provides information, reviews and ratings, maps and driving directions for thousands of vets nationwide.

Zootoo: At Zootoo, you can check out the cutest photo galleries and videos from pet lovers like you, have fun with quizzes and games, and get valuable information about your pet’s health and care.

Un-Moderated reviews are very stressful to read, correct, or if downright fraudulent pursue legal options against when they are post anonymously. Some search engines actually do not provide any recourse for the business owner at all...other than getting good customers/clients to deluge the search engine with good reviews.

There are several online services that can help manage your online reputation as well if you have the money to pay for them. Reputation.com and Online Reputation Manager. So this also demonstrates your vet business is not the only business 'fighting' the spam of false negative reviews. Sheesh...companies are actually making money off of dealing with this issue.

That said, I look at the reviews provided by these sources with a grain of salt. Both because the system can so easily be skewed and thereby making the all the reviews questionable. Anonymous negative reviews are simply not considered. This is because the business owner was never given the chance to make things right or the review is false. If they are posting a factual negative review, there is no reason to hide behind a computer screen.

the www rocks. for the price one pays for care why should vets be any different than cars, tvs, travel, furniture etc etc,? all this to say: rate away! and btw, why should anyone go out of their way to please a vet with a rating? what do they do to deserve such deference?

this is a p.s. I was just over at an app store and suddenly realized how happy you must be to be a vet....those techies are a tough crowd....and the reviews are for items that for the most part cost a buck or two, lots are for free. I saw one app with 97000....all the vets in america combined dont have that many reviews LOL anyway, next time you are feeling bad about a bad review just thank your lucky stars you dont programme for a living!!!!!

It's true that an unhappy client is much more likely to post a review than a happy client.

I found a particularly negative review of the clinic I use (I think it was YELP). They didn't like the people at the front desk, they didn't like the techs and they really didn't like the vet. I know from over a decade of experience it couldn't possibly be true on all counts. I even hesitate to believe any of it was true.

I think there are some people who can't be pleased regardless of the circumstances and we need to remember than when reading online reviews where anyone can post anything they wish.

I try to post reviews when I'm particularly pleased with a service or product. However, don't get me started on windows salesmen. :-)

Uggggh I didn't know about most of those. I am now resisting looking them up.

Last time I looked up reviews for my hospital most were from before I worked there or specifically referenced other doctors, but one was directed at me (not by name, but by description) from a client who at her heart was just upset that she got declined for Care Credit and couldn't afford treatment without it. It was brutal, though, and made me feel like crap. I try not to even look anymore - constructive criticism I can take, but I deal poorly with angry ranting.

I think people are wising up to the review scene, especially when it was publicized that Yelp was asking for money to remove negative reviews and insider pages will often remove them too.

Then you have the "professional reviewers" that sit down and type up positives all over the country in one sitting. And of course there are the new companies such as "Reputation Defender" that try to bury all kinds of negatives.

Two more sites to add that do keep postings:
Ripoffreports.com and docterscorecard

Having the experience of posting only "one egregious incident" on various review sites, and my own detailed web site to last forever, it could be the way of the future for some to simply post their own blog/site.

I have never, nor ever will, hide behind an alias , because that diminishes credibility too. As far as "glowing reporting"? I've thought about that, but really, isn't that what a professional or business should automatically provide?

It should be noted that if you speak/write the truth, present the facts, libel and defamation threats are simply that--- as my unsuccessful "defendants" found with the libel counter-suit, even in a State with no Anti-SLAPP legislation.

I do have a "troll" following me around, so I won't be surprised to read an appearance or comment on this blog

Thank You for all these sites! I happened upon one (don't remember which one) and saw a negative review of my fabulous vet where I used to live and to whom I drove 6 hours to be near when I had puppies! I wrote a fabulous review, which he deserves over and over again and now can go write on all the other sites!
When I moved out of that State, this particular vet gave me a few tips in finding a good vet. He suggested the following:
Visit unannounced and ask for a tour of the facility.
If you approve, make an appointment for a nail-clipping.
If a tech does the clipping, the vet's ego is too big.
If the vet does the clipping, pick his/her brain for
what is important to you.
Ask about fees for common procedures, i.e., vaccines, spay/neuters, etc. to be sure you can afford this vet.

Still searching for a good and "honest" vet here, my house is for sale, and I will move near one!
I had a potential employer tell me that he didn't check my references because he doesn't know any of those people and, therefore, doesn't know what "outstanding" means to them.......

With respect to what you were told, I think the decision tree is wrong. Do stop in unannounced and check them out. But, realize not every hospital can offer an immediate tour if staffers are caring for patients. Tours can be disruptive. Check out their website tour instead. Do have the nail trim done. But, realize that it is the techs who have the most primary, hands-on care with a patient. Ask them questions. Good techs are knowledgeable and compassionate and reflect the level of care offered in the hospital. They should be proud of their hospital and what its unique qualities are. Additionally, the doctors may be tied up with seeing patients, performing surgeries or calling and speaking with patient's families. I certainly would not expect my doctor to perform a manicure only appointment. It's not about ego, it's about using one's skills to their best ability.

Haha- or if your vet is anything like me, their nail clipping skills are mediocre. I bring my own pets in to have my techs clip their nails because they are SO much better at it than me! I may be able to do surgery, but somehow I still can't avoid nipping quicks during nail trims :(

No thank you. I am online a lot, but wouldn't put much confidence in reviews.
They don't give the real picture - how good is the surgeon? Just because she has lasers, and ultrasound doesn't mean she has good outcomes. Of course, this is true with human surgeons too. Sometimes the nicest people aren't necessarily the most skilled.
Just because she is a member of AAHA, doesn't mean that I like her policies or that her outcomes are good or her vaccine protocols are up to date.
I have started asking for recommendations from the specialty vets - since they see the work of the "regular" vets pretty consistently.
Also, since I work with local rescue, we hear a lot of horror stories, so we know if a certain vet has had a lot of bad outcomes. There are actually some potential adopters we deny because they use certain vets.
I use different vets for different needs - a holistic/DVM for titers(45 minutes away); a large, multivet practice with a good surgeon and "no appointment" hours which work for me when I think we need to start tx for a UTI right now instead after an appoinment tomorrow (40 minutes away); and a vet 5 minutes from home for scheduled appointments and management of long-term issues. And of course, specialty vets for skin/allergy and eyes. I probably would use the specialty surgeons for most surgeries now-a-days too, even though they are 3x as expensive.
Just too many issues to go by a review!
I'm wondering if the vets have reviews of their patients? Do they warn eachother about problem "Moms?" I suspect they'd like to review the people who bring the animals in!

I once watched the front desk staff at my cats' vet office reamed out by a steamed client who could not believe she had to pay $70 for an exam. This clinic is on Capitol Hill, three blocks from the actual Capitol. Primo real estate. Of course an exam costs $70. It costs a lot to maintain a high quality practice in that location. And this place is doing so well it now has two vets for the evening hours instead of one. So most people know the truth but I do worry that idiots like the one I described earlier post their comments while the satisfied clients don't. I have posted favorable comments about this practice on the local Yelp.

I do read reviews. I find if there are just too many negatives I don't go.
After reading your blog I actually went and wrote two great reviews about the vets I see now. I do not write bad reviews ( it would take something really awful for me to do that, like seeing abuse or something along those lines) I just feel that bad reviews can hurt someones business and I do not need that kind of karma following me around thank you very much!

I find that when I go to a vet each vet may offer something different. I just found one vet that is very good with joint and skin problems. I have another vet that is a very good surgeon and has emergency hours.So I am often scanning for vets because my dogs cant tell me what is wrong and I want the very best I can find.

The bad reviews are always upsetting, but instead of burying our heads in the sand about it we try to reach out to the client to make things right. This has often already been done, but sometimes they prefer not to respond and instead take to the web to work out their anger.
I liked your note about disgruntled ex-employees - that has definitely been known to happen. Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about those. We just hope that the good reviews outweigh the bad ones, and try to make the upset clients happy with their next experience.
Thanks for the huge list of sites - I'll have to go investigate our reputation there, too!

When I visit a site that posts reviews, I don't just look at one review. If there's been one or two clients who flew off the handle at a good vet it will be pretty obvious. Compare to eBay, where you can see the percentage of positive versus negative ratings.

Perhaps you can give clients a sheet asking them to visit the rating sites and post their good experiences. Since it is anonymous, they would feel free to do it or not.

I went to the same vet for years and was very happy, and only in the past year or so had a bad experience. For a number of reasons, it led me to change vets, but I would not get online and trash him. While he screwed up and hurt my dog enough that my dog is now terrified of his office, it was not intentional and the many years of considerate, good care he gave my pets are not all erased by one bad judgment. Yes, I was angry (it was a dumb and unnecessary mistake), but we are all human and errors of judgment happen. Fortunately, this one was not life-threatening.

I rely on reviews for most of the services I hire. The way to use them responsibly is to look at the overall ratings, not just a few good or bad reviews. When I see a scathing review, I look carefully at the details to see if they're relevant. If it looks like a real problem, I try to look up that person's other reviews to see if they're just overly critical of service providers in general. If most of their other reviews are positive, I'll take their complaint more seriously, but will still weigh it against the preponderance of reviews. Any of us can have a bad day or make a mistake, so one bad review will not usually sway me away from a provider.

I'm also a big advocate of posting positive reviews for people and products I'm happy with. I think the tendancy for only disgruntled people to post reviews has changed a lot with the ease of reviewing on the internet. Generally there are many more favorable reviews now for any service than negative ones.

I own a pet sitting business in Seattle and encourage all my clients to post reviews about my company. Online reviews are the way of the world now, and we can't be afraid of an occasional disgruntled post. In most cases we have the ability to respond to them with an explanation anyway. Just my opinion.

I'm not sure why reviews are such a source an angst. Yeah, a quality practitioner might get an unreasonable review here and there, but most people using Yelp and the others are savvy enough to take in all the reviews, not just one or two rants.

Ways to mitigate the effects of poor reviews:

- Be a good, personable doctor with quality staff

- Encourage people to post positive experiences by gently suggesting at time of payment that they hop on Yelp (or whichever sites are most influential in your area) when they get home.

- Respond in a reasonable way to rants, especially rants with even a sliver of merit. If the rant is about being kept waiting for 45 minutes for an appointment, post that you regret that experience and have implemented a process of calling/texting clients when the doctor is behind more than 15 minutes. If it's about cost, point out that your website posts average costs for typical procedures (What? You don't have this? You SHOULD.), financing options and the like. Any response should be solution oriented, not defensive

- Be active in your offline community. Sponsor a spay day at the local shelter or dog park clean up. Real world word of mouth is still your best bet in acquiring new clients

- Don't sweat the ranters. The type of client who focuses on one or two bad reviews out of 20 isn't the kind you want at your clinic anyway

I've been to probably six or seven vet offices as a client over the past three years with my dogs. I can honestly say at least 50% of them deserved a negative Yelp review based on the front staff alone. These folks set the tone for any client visit and will make or break your online reputation in a flash. Wanna minimize or mitigate negative reviews? Start there before even turning your computer on.

Re: respond in reasonable ways. This is very good advice and I am surprise why most vets don't do that on sites that allow LEGITIMATE business replies to reviews.

I'm not usually one to give advice to vets on what to do about a bad review. But here goes.

In my opinion the very best way to handle a bad review is to respond honestly and with caring and conscientiousness. The very worst thing you can do is lash out at the client, engage in all kinds of evident defensive bragging, denial, etcetera.

If nothing else, you can simply post:

"Mrs. X, I am so very sorry you had a bad experience at our business. I would very much like to speak with you and understand what we could have done better. If as a result of that conversation, I learn that our practice [fill in blank, e.g., mishandled your pets case, treated you rudely, charged you for unnecessary services] I will take appropriate action. Please contact me at your earliest convenience."

And then DO IT

Those are for smaller things.

If it is a case where you actually screwed up and made a medical mistake with their pets, attacking the owner is NOT going to make you look any better and is going to be pretty transparent.

The best human hospitals investigate errors, find their source or the practices that are creating an error prone environment, and develop and implement a plan to address it. Vets should do the same. Without denial.

There is no down side. You have virtually no legal liability. So why not do the right thing? Work with the client. If no medical error or wrongdoing occurred and the issue is more of client relations or price or poor customer service, deal with it cordially. Show that you want to make it right. If there was some kind of medical error, or worse, the best thing you can do for your practice, your patients, your clients, is the same as the best thing you can do about the bad review.

Conduct a full investigation. Get an objective outsider if you need to. Get recommendations on how to change your practice or, if you need to lose a staff member (drunk/high staff vet, abusive staff vet, incompetent staff vet, uncaring staff vet) then get rid of them. If you yourself messed up either because you were careless or not as skilled or careful as you needed to be, admit it, do something about it (e.g., implement a double check system for meds, change your protocols, get some training, establish a policy to refer to specialists for that type of situation, etc). Tell the client that it may be too late for their pet, but that you want them to KNOW that you care about what happened, and you are -- of your own volition -- taking steps so it doesn't happen again. Show them the steps you are taking.

And if they have done or still do a bad review of you, then respond -- without attacking -- admitting the incident, and explaining what you have done since then to address the problem. Non-defensively, without attacking the client or pet.

It's basic human psychology. If you do those things, most people will read it and not think less of you.

Unless of course there is a long string of stories from different people over years about incompetence. In that case, stepping up won't work forever, people will get the big clue that you may mean well but you are in the wrong line of business.

This is really the difference in my mind between a good vet who has a bad day or makes a mistake and a "bad vet." A good vet will care about, admit, and do something about his or her mistakes. A bad vet will cover them up and take no action to try to prevent their recurrance, instead resorting to arrogance, attack, denial, records forgery, lawsuits, lies and more. Or even asking for a slew of solicited, unreal reviews from friends and relatives to "bury" the bad but truthful ones. tsssk tsssk.

You have to be really careful with assuming this. Not that I'm for vets refusing to accept responsibility when it was a clear mess up, but legal liability in vet med is being challenged actively.

It's no longer a simple case of a vet being into it for the cost of the animal. (Killed your shelter dog? Opps, sorry, here's $100.) There was a very recent ruling that found for the owners of a cat against the owners of the dog that attacked (allegedly) it. They spent north of 10k trying to save the cat. The courts found that the cat owners could in fact sue for every penny of that, not just the replacement cost. Now they haven't proved the dog did it and have yet to win a judgement against the dog's owners, but they have the legal ability to sue for a good chunk of change.

What's next? Suing for mental anguish? Could be and you don't want to be the losing vet in that case.

Well, I for one consider that case good news. Here's a story for you to ponder:

My cat was overdosed on insulin by his vets son. This young individual was not a licensed vet tech, and his entire veterinary experience apparently had consisted of helping out in the kennel over summer school breaks. They left him alone with patients. He used a tuberculin syringe instead of an insulin syringe. He overdosed my cat (30 units instead of 3). No one treated my cat for 24 hours. The staff member who came in the morning after the overdose, also an unlicensed unsupervised assistant, according to the magically disappearing records found my cat "unresponsive" and the vet was still not brought in until 12 hours later.

My cat lived with dramatic brain damage after 1 month in a high end referral ICU where a very wonderful neurologist helped save his life. The responsible vets insurance company paid the majority of that bill and the vet the balance, but after that point all of my cats neurological treatment and his special care as a result of the overdose fell to me.

I spent approximately $16,000 over the next two years of his life as a result of this overdose. I cannot recover that under law because my state even has a cap on ECONOMIC damages. I was told that I cannot even recover out of pocket costs for injuries that are clearly the result of this man's extreme negligence.

So do you think thats a good thing? Do you think vets should be able to do stuff like that, and not even have to recover the subsequent medical expenses that result?

That's ECONOMIC damages. I'm not right now addressing non-economic damages, although I believe of course that this too, should be recognized by the law.

I didn't assert that the ruling was good or bad, just that vets today are open to a lot more liability than they used to be. You'd suggested that vets should investigate errors "without denial" and that there's "virtually no legal liability" in doing so. That's incorrect.

In your case, you were told that you cannot collect even with extreme negligence. You can sue to try to change that. People are filing those sorts of lawsuits with more and more frequency and sometimes they're helping to set precedent for what can and cannot be recovered. Here's an interesting article about cat owners suing and appealing and winning against a jerk who shot their cat. If they can prove it was "willful," they might even be able to sue for punitive damages:

Sure, human hospitals conduct policy and procedure reviews, but there isn't any immediate transparency to the general public during the process, and certainly not to a party who has been wronged and could sue. As an animal lover, you want any incompetent or mistake-making vet to fess up, pay for their error and to work to ensure that it never happens again. As a vet, you need to be aware that in this day and age, you're open to being sued out of reputation and/or practice as these types of laws are challenged.

I used to pay more attention to reviews but view most now with a grain of salt. Read good reviews about a vacuum cleaner and decided to purchase it based on that. The machine is OK, but the reviews led me to believe I'd be getting something better. Would pay more attention to reviews on a site like eBay before purchasing.

I'd discount reviews that sound slightly deranged. Some people are WAY over the top. Still prefer to get a referral from someone I know before getting any kind of service.

Had no idea there were so many sites rating vets. No matter how good your service/product is, there will always be disgruntled people. Can't satisfy everyone.

First, several of the sites I sampled are a complete waste of time - they are just sites that search other sites and list vet hospitals and addresses next to a bunch of ads. Best Veterinarian Review doesn't actually have any reviews on their site, only a few poorly written posts about how important it is to find vet reviews. Dexknows Veterinarians has listings but only a handful of the vets in my city had reviews, and the reviews are from yelp.com. Petco has thousands of reviews but they are all of products, unless I am really missing a link they don't have veterinarian listings or reviews.

I discovered a long time ago that there is someone who had a bad experience at any given vet hospital you can name. And as much as we care about our pets, we can and do blow things out of proportion when we feel they have suffered, or we think the vet should have/could have seen something or done something about a health issue that arose later. And a lot of the negative reviews are about the prices and the handling of money, which may or may not be legitimate gripes.

On the other hand it's comforting when you're going to a new vet hospital, to read a bunch of good reviews that appear to be from experienced and well-informed pet owners. Then if you see a negative one, you put it in perspective.

I think people are increasingly becoming more savvy about what they're reading online these days and realizing that they not only need to consider WHAT they're reading but WHO did the writing and why. Positive reviews can be just as misleading as negative ones since, for all you know, the positive review may have been written by the very subject of the review. This is a common occurence on sites like Amazon where authors of books sometimes write WONDERFUL reviews about their own books under assumed usernames. I've read a number of negative reviews in which the author of the review ends up coming across more negatively than the subject they're condeming. I think reviews are an important source to consider in making decisions but the reviews themselves should be evaluated and judged ;-)

I found my vet by reading reviews, not all where positive, but many of the negative reviews had vet comments to either Post a policy like rescheduling if your late or directly confronting a disgruntled client who had never actually complained to them (the vets) about any problems and that they would be willing to work to rectify any problems or issues. Sometimes the disgruntled client even would then post back afterwards to amend or update there review which almost always was more positive afterwards.

The fact that my vets office staff and vets took time to do this impressed me far more than I ever thought possible. My vet may not be perfect, may always push the IAMS samples & not really 100% understand why I believe my 5 months of research should trump her years in vet school and decades of practice, but she and the other vets are always willing the hear you out.

I don't think the majority of negative reviews are from disgruntled former employees or people complaining about cost. I would like to see the statistics on that.

Online reviews have indeed become a way for we clients to warn pet lovers about the vets who have committed acts of ** alleged ** negligence or malpractice. The only way. Really.

And I'd be wiling to bet that for every disgruntled employee review, you have a fake positive review posted by the vet himself or his family or someone else he put up to it.

Ever noticed how whenever a negative review shows up, there are a flurry of positive ones? Right after? hh ha. Hopefully people have the brains to think through that.

Some of those reviews include a big tip off, like insider industry statistics that no regular client knows. LOL.

So the reason I think they hate them is that the truth is coming out. The truth about the lack of standards for quality of care, and the way its harming pets. After all, the patients have never been able to talk about this.

Frankly, I think the call to "help shift the balance" is biased. That would be like me saying "go give bad reviews."

Why do you need to shift a balance? Shouldn't people just review and tell the truth rather than "shifting" a "balance"? What is this? An arm wrestling tournament?

I've left both negative and positive reviews. I have even taken issue with people who gave bad reviews to my current vets because of their price, telling them that I know unfortunately from bad experience how priceless competence is, and how rare practices with licensed techs are. But you'd better believe I also have put out the warning about the clinic that OD'd my cat. And I will keep doing it. On all those sites you just listed so thanks.

In my opinion, those healthcare professionals (including physicians as well as veterinarians) who exercise due diligence, and treat their patients (including companion animals, who can not speak for themselves) as they would like to be treated have nothing to fear from online reviews..

Just as the good veterinarians/physicians do not need to solicit positive reviews, neither should those who fail to exercise due diligence and common sense be surprised when negative reviews appear. While they may be able to hide or have those negative reviews filtered on certain sites, thankfully, not all sites engage in that kind of one sided, unethical behavior.

Frankly, when I look at a review, I factor in the number of details which are covered, the language used by the author of the review...ie., do they seem to have some knowledge/understanding of medical terminology and have they given a preponderance of positive reviews rather than negative ones. Is there a "theme" in their negative reviews..ie., do they provide enough details as to why the person that they are reviewing is given a poor evaluation. And by that, I mean not only bedside manner, which is important, but things like improper diagnosis, failure to monitor, unethical behavior, records missing, failure to review the patient's chart before discharge from hospital, failure to note clinical symptoms, etc.

Until the day that all physicians/'veterinarians are more concerned with protecting their patients from inept colleagues than in protecting their colleagues when they fail to exercise due diligence, online reviews will a necessary tool with which to make an informed choice.

It's very simple and it's the way any business should run. When you screw up, take responsibility and apologize. Keep in mind how much it costs you to get a client (if you don't know what it's costing you, you're not running your business well) vs. losing one, plus the bad online reviews and how many clients you lose for each one. I find it amazing the number of vet offices that are just plain dumb on this account. Vets and all professionals basically provide customer service. Guess what? If someone's upset over anything under $500, just refund it and for goodness sake don't scream and defend and argue and waste the client's time -- all it does it antagonize people usually dealing with pets in pain that are already very upset. And always, always apologize and express common courtesy and empathy even if you don't think you did anything wrong. This is customer service 101 and I can tell you that, for me, the difference between those who get negative reviews and don't is those who apologize and take responsibility -- even if they don't issue the refund -- I may be unhappy with them but they've acknowledged the error and expressed regret -- that's all I ask. Apologies cost nothing and a long, long way. Arrogance and patronizing acts is what gets negative reviews.